12 SYSTEM OF SCHIRACH. 



awarded a greater affinity to the female than the male sex ; 

 but who, nevertheless, were held to be destitute of any 

 procreating power, nor possessing any direct influence on 

 the multiplication of their species. On this classification 

 he founded the following system :— From every egg that 

 would produce a working bee, if it remained in the small 

 cell till its maturity, and being nourished in the usual man- 

 ner, a queen bee would always result therefrom, if the bees 

 gave to each egg an enlargement of the cell, in which the 

 worm and the nymph could properly expand themselves : 

 and also if the bees provided it with richer food, and in a 

 more abundant quantity. It was also a leading feature of his 

 system, that the parts which belonged to the queen bee, lay 

 concealed in exquisite minuteness, in the liquid principle of 

 the egg, but that as soon as those parts obtained the neces- 

 sary space for their expansion, they increased in size, and 

 the development gradually proceeded, until the queen 

 attained her full size and beauty. Finally, he affirmed that 

 all the common bees were females and virgins, devoted to 

 perpetual celibacy : and, although possessing in themselves 

 the power of procreating, yet that it was never allowed to 

 be called into action. 



The following, therefore, may be taken as the programme 

 of his system ; — 



1 The Queen. 

 2 Drones. 3 Working Bees, 



a Fruitful. b Unfruitful. 



Drones. 

 This system, however, met with very great and just oppo- 

 sition, for the very circumstance of the existence of a fruit- 

 ful ovarium, never procreating, nor producing any of the 

 species natural to it, threw the whole system into disrepute, 

 and at once established its fallacy. Nevertheless, it excited 

 a considerable sensation amongst the entomologists of the 

 day, and some of the opponents of Schirach extended their 



